Stonewall Uprising, 1969

In 1969 it was illegal in New York to serve alcohol to gay customers, to dance with someone of the same sex, or to wear fewer than three articles of clothing conventionally assigned to one's sex, and raids on gay bars were routine and largely unreported. The Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street was a mafia-run bar without a liquor licence, and one of the few places where drag queens, transgender women and homeless young people were admitted at all.

When police raided it in the early hours of 28 June, the crowd outside did not disperse as usual. Accounts differ over who acted first — a woman in handcuffs calling to the bystanders, a thrown coin, a thrown brick — but the crowd fought the police, who barricaded themselves inside the bar they had come to raid. Disturbances continued for several nights. A year later the first Pride marches were held in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to mark the anniversary, and the date has been kept ever since. The Stonewall Inn and the small park across the street were designated a United States National Monument in 2016.